Cano et al., J Tourism Hospit 2013, 2:2 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2167-0269.1000115 Tourism & Hospitality Research Article Article OpenOpen Access Access Preservation and Conservation of Rural Buildings as a Subject of Cultural Tourism: A Review Concerning the Application of New Technologies and Methodologies Cano M1*, Garzón E1 and Sánchez-Soto PJ2 1Department of Rural Engineering, University of Almeria, La Canada de San Urbano, Spain 2Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales, Centro Mixto CSIC–US, Spain Abstract The cataloguing and promotion of rural architecture contribute to creating jobs by stimulating new economic activity, such as the promotion of cultural tourism, while preserving a valuable source of information on rural culture, recovering local construction techniques, encouraging a sense of community, and making villages and rural areas more attractive to visitors.The general aim of the present Review is to analyse agricultural and rural buildings and their properties in order to identify key issues concerning sustainable reutilisation in tourism. It is intended to Almeria province (Andalucía, Spain) a more complete sustainable tourism development framework to satisfy all the demands, from sun and beach at the coast as well as alternative tourism at the interior, based on the protection and the valuable re-utilization of popular rural architectural heritage with potential interest for tourism purposes. Thus, a catalogue of traditional rural buildings in a particular area was carried out, identifying and characterizing each one, establishing criteria for a dynamic and rational selection. The modelling of the lifecycle for the architectural project carried out, for the reuse of rural heritage, as a way of stimulating the tourism sector, is based on methods and risk analysis (statistical methods) and multicriteria analysis that allow the reduction in the subjectivity of the deterioration models carried out. Through the application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), as a weighing method, a linear, weighting and additive model that combines all of the factors in one unique global assessment can be obtained, for which values have been assigned to the coefficients of the linear expression that reflect the relative importance of each factor. Keywords: Rural tourism; Rural buildings; Cataloguing; GIS buildings create a long-term dependency on e.g. how energy-effectively these can be used or how often maintenance/renovation is required. Introduction Furthermore, as a result of the embodied energy in construction From the sixties of last century, the model of tourism at the [7], it is more sustainable to keep and renovate e.g. former popular Mediterranean coast has been sun and beach, being characterized by building rather than pulling them down and erecting new buildings. the existence of lot of people with acquisition power at medium-low Alternatively, in the case of e.g. partial demolition, building materials level and specially concentrated in determined areas, in particular can be efficiently recovered, refitted and reused, thereby reducing the during summer times. During last decades, this phenomenon has environmental impact [8]. changed by diverse reasons, for instance by a mentality change and the The only chance abandoned, redundant popular buildings have for increase of free time [1]. survival and conservation is through utilization [9]. The expansion of rural tourism is a trend that is common to most countries in Europe. Tourism is considered to be a potentially Monuments are undeniable documents of world history. Their complementary activity for local communities and especially for thorough study is an obligation of our era to mankind’s past and future. farming families. The benefits are generally summed up as a three-way Over the recent decades, international bodies and agencies have passed yield for the host community (the economical and social dimension of resolutions concerning the obligation for protection, conservation rural tourism), for the land itself (environmental maintenance), and and restoration of monuments. The Athens Convention (1931), the for the tourist (leisure and tourism in the countryside), which implies a Hague Agreement (1954), the Chart of Venice (1964) and the Granada sequence of inter-related benefits. All these elements place this type of Agreement (1985) are only but a few of these resolutions in which the tourism within a framework of long-lasting development [1]. Tourism is considered to be one of the diversification tools in rural *Corresponding author: Cano M, Department of Rural Engineering, University of development [2,3] and sustainability discourses have been expanded Almería, Spain,Tel: +34 950 01 55 29; E-mail: [email protected] to tourism [4]. Sustainable tourism, according to the World Tourism Organization, is: “envisaged as leading to management of all resources Received July 08, 2013; Accepted August 29, 2013; Published September 03, 2013 in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, Citation: Cano M, Garzón E, Sánchez-Soto PJ (2013) Preservation and Conservation of Rural Buildings as a Subject of Cultural Tourism: A Review biological diversity, and life support systems” [5]. Concerning the Application of New Technologies and Methodologies. J Tourism Sustainability in a popular building context is determined by Hospit 2: 115. doi:10.4172/2167-0269.1000115 several factors. A primary factor is that the construction industry is Copyright: © 2013 Cano M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under responsible for a large proportion of pollutants and material and energy the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and use world-wide [6]. In addition, the qualitative characteristics of actual source are credited. J Tourism Hospit Sustainable Tourism ISSN: 2167-0269 JTH, an open access journal Volume 2 • Issue 2 • 1000115 Citation: Cano M, Garzón E, Sánchez-Soto PJ (2013) Preservation and Conservation of Rural Buildings as a Subject of Cultural Tourism: A Review Concerning the Application of New Technologies and Methodologies. J Tourism Hospit 2: 115. doi:10.4172/2167-0269.1000115 Page 2 of 13 need for geometric documentation of the monuments is also stressed, The general aim the present review, was to analyse agricultural as part of their protection, study and conservation [10]. and rural, using Almeria province (Andalusia, Spain) as an example. Specific goals are: The present authors consider that the re-utilization of popular architectural heritage with tourism purposes is very positive by several • To identify key factors concerning construction methods and reasons, mainly the recovery of old rural and industrial buildings, building materials influencing the sustainable reutilisation of generally under ruination conditions. Their recovery is very valuable agricultural buildings during the renovation-refurbishment to get new improved buildings where an alternative tourism offer can process in rural tourism enterprises. be presented. • To account for territorial differences concerning approaches to UNESCO (1946) and the Council of Europe have formed sustainable agricultural building reutilisation in rural tourism, specialized organizations for conservation of Cultural Heritage. and study how the location affects these processes. ICOMOS (International Council for Monuments and Sites) is the most important one, but also CIPA (International Committee for Methodologies of Study: Research Efforts Architectural Photogrammetry), ISPRS (International Society for One of the main characteristics of rural architecture is their Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing), ICOM (International Council “utilitarian purpose”, to the extent that buildings lacking a function for Museums), ICCROM (International Centre for the Conservation have tended to disappear. For this reason, reuse is a viable option for and Restoration of Monuments) and UIA (International Union of preserving this Heritage [11]. Along these lines [11,12,15-17] have Architects) are all involved in conservation task of cultural heritage devised methodologies to catalogue traditional buildings, developing [10], andthe IAPH (the Andalusian Institute of Historic Heritage), all identification files, printed or computerized, in which a description they are involved in conservation works concerning Cultural Heritage. of the surroundings appears, as well as the location, type, materials In this sense, García and Ayuga [9], point out some of the most used and graphic documents. Other research work has focused to relevant positive consequences of reusing rural buildings in Spain, analyse the buildings detail [11,18-21] for which graphical and visual such as saving energy and materials, creating new jobs and economic documentation is particularly important. activities, promoting cultural tourism, preserving a valuable source A great deal of research has been focused on analysing the detail of of documentation on rural culture, recovering local construction the buildings to be reused, where the graphic and visual documentation techniques, encouraging a sense of community and improving villages is particularly important. The problem of decision making has become and rural scenery, making them more attractive to visit. a subject of significant interest over the last few years in the field of On the other hand, over